Poem - Leon Gellert

The Diggers

By Leon Gellert

The diggers are digging, and digging deep,

They’re digging and singing,

And I’m asleep.

They’re digging and singing and swiftly they’re swinging

The flying earth as it falls in a heap.

And some of it scatters and falls on my head;

But the diggers dig on. They can only dig.

They can only sing and their eyes are big,

Their eyes are big and heavy as lead.

They dig and they sing and they think I’m dead 

The diggers are digging, and filling the hole.

They’re sighing and singing.

They pray for my soul.

I hear what they say, and from where I am lying,

I hear a new corporal calling the roll.

But the diggers dig on and fill in my bed,

They diggers dig on, and they sweat and they sweat.

They sigh and they sign, and their wyes are wet.

The brown earth clatters and covers my head;

Then I laugh and I laugh, for they think that I’m dead.